calling all HRM users!!

I got one after a couple of months and find them grossly over-exaggerated. That being said - it depends on your intensity and weight. Right now (at 178) I burn about 200 an hour on my Wii Fit Plus -Free Step, Strength training and some Boxing (expert). When I was 30 lbs more and was not use to the exercise - I burned about 250 an hour. I find the Wii Fit Plus calories burned a tiny bit low - by about 30-40. Hope this helps you. I have a Polar F6 - middle of the road. You do need a chest strap for accurate calorie tracking! Good luck!

I found the Wii board and Wii Fit plus to be VERY generous with the calories it tells you

A HRM with a chest strap should be 90% accurate. (So it could be up to 10% high or 10% low). The other methods that don't use your HR are completely untrustworthy. They are just using averages and guessing based on your weight (and sometimes not even your weight). Sometimes they'll be high and sometimes they'll be low and, once in a while, they are just right.

One thing about the HRM is that you have to set it up right. If it hasn't got your age, gender, weight and fitness level, then the formulas will not calculate calories burned correctly. Also, some HRMs don't ask for a fitness level. If they don't, then instead of using the calories they calculate, you can calculate your own with a formula. Like so:

Using VO2max
Men: C/min = (-59.3954 + (-36.3781 + 0.271 x age + 0.394 x weight + 0.404 x VO2max + 0.634 x HR))/4.184
Women: C/min = (-59.3954 + (0.274 x age + 0.103 x weight + 0.380 x VO2max + 0.450 x HR)) / 4.184

Weight is in kg, not pounds.

If you don't know your VO2Max (which is your fitness measure), there are ways to estimate it. The lower it is, the less calories you burn so, if you want to be conservative, use something in the 30-35 range. That's a reasonable range for a woman who is just getting started being more active.

Finally, the calories burned number includes the calories your brain and organs would be using anyway even if you weren't exercising. Those are already accounted for in your activity level. So you need to subtract them out; otherwise, if you eat all your exercise calories, you are actually over-eating. For most people their base calories burned ranges from 60 to 100 calories an hour.